I’ve never been able to meditate. I feel silly. I’m sitting there…or lying…eyes closed…or staring at a candle…whatever…and I can’t do anything but think about the fact that I’m trying not to think about it…this thought process is intermittently interrupted by the thought that I feel silly.

So I gave up.

This summer I found myself in a Creek with nothing to do. It was a lazy day on vacation and we had no plans until the evening. It was too shallow to swim, so I was just floating. Without trying to I started to drift. I closed my eyes and just felt myself being drifted along by the current. The movement distracted myself from everything else so I didn’t have to try to meditate…suddenly I just was.

Of course because I was in such a state of meditation…and having done so accidentally…I didn’t even realize I was meditating. It wasn’t until a dragonfly landed on my nose that my meditation was broken and I realized that I realized that I was doing it. Before losing the feeling I allowed myself to drift into meditation again and after a while I wasn’t even aware of the movement and I was just aware of my breathing.

I was doing it.

I was meditating.

No great words of wisdom in this post, but I thought it might be interesting to share with anyone that was trying to meditate but finding it hard. The stillness…the awareness of gravity…the weight of my body…somehow I couldn’t escape that until I was floating downstream on a lazy afternoon.

From all hat I have read being able to direct the attention of your mind is the most powerful thing we can do. It definitely change my life from complex PTSD and agoraphobia to an extrovert expressive. Works for me. Maybe you have stumbled on something that will change your life.